Coloured Science
by Be3
Summary: Ch1 - Kirk and Spock discuss the humane in science and scientists. Ch2 - McCoy one-shot. Ch 3, 4 and x more - an outsider's perspective. Spoilers to as many eps as you recognize.
1. Kirk and Spock

**Disclaimer: **not mine. I do not profit from it.

**Warnings:** contains a reference to the Dark Ages of human history. Takes place immediately after 'For The World is Hollow...'. There are spoilers for that ep and for 'The Ultimate Computer'.

**A/N****:** when watching the episode, I was reminded of Giordano Bruno, whose fate was not unlike that of the old man who died punished by the computer. Also, the ending was so ridiculously improbable, that I could not help but be suspicious. I tried to reconcile these two streams of thought here. Special thanks for Aragonite, who told me about the Maven's 'Word of the Day' website. All my marlinespikes are yours!

* * *

'I used to colour-code my notes.'

Kirk's lolling head snapped up.

He could forgive Spock anything after the Vulcan cured their other close friend, but he was jittery with nerves, exhausted, and not in a reflective mood.

'In fact,' Spock continued, 'I seem to have memorized the pattern remarkably well. It was crude and the logic was questionable, but it served its purpose.'

'Easy for someone with a mind that organized.' Kirk disregarded the 'questionably logical' part. Modesty was a human trait that attacked his friend at the most inopportune (for him) moments.

Spock was staring straight ahead, vacantly, and the conscience that all good captains share forced Kirk to contribute something.

'You tagged the subjects? There a system to follow, wasn't there?'

'There was little order save for my whimsy, Jim.'

Now Kirk felt awake.

'You don't do _whimsy_, Spock. Tell me more of your code. What was the blue for?'

'The rarest colour on Vulcan. Mathematics.'

'The green?' He smiled involuntarily. What a childish game. Spock intoned, 'Green meant Biology, including Xenobiology. Mother has a bonsai garden. I had been - surprised by Terran vegetation during my first visit to the planet.'

'You knew they're big, but you didn't realise it.'

Spock's face soured imperceptibly. 'My mother's relatives live in Auckland.'

Kirk laughed.

'Eucalypts, eh?'

'Eucalypts, Jim.'

There was a stoic contemplativeness about his First Officer, a veneer of barely-visible remorse; as if he had understood or witnessed something he would rather avoided.

Kirk's instincts cried murder.

'Yellow?' Nonchalantly.

'Geology.' And here was that blankness he'd come to associate with the whole non-feeling business.

'Orange?' He hoped human terminology would suffice. Who knew what those eyes even saw?

Spock clasped his hands behind his back. 'Orange was for Planetary Studies.'

There was a pattern. The captain looked at his XO's rigid back. He despised being led like a blind man to a revelation that would likely cause pain to his friend. 'The red, then, was for Astronomy, or some such?'

Spock nodded. 'Precisely.'

Kirk stood up, stretched and walked to stand beside the Vulcan cataloguing the two cups on the table.

'Please explain,' he prompted. His proximity had an effect, but not the one he desired; the other clammed up, straightening.

'The pattern is incomplete - '

'It's about Astronomy, isn't it?' Silence. He ploughed on. 'But why would it distress you? For a Vulcan, it would be an obvious choice.'

Spock gazed straight ahead.

'Which is why it had not been questioned.'

'By Vulcans,' Kirk guessed.

'Indeed.'

It was worse than pulling teeth. Kirk wondered fleetingly at the strange bits of knowledge one accumulated on an exploratory mission. Had he stayed on Earth, he'd never have his teeth pulled.

'But it was, by someone else.'

'Indeed.'

'By whom?' Kirk asked brightly, clasping his hands, and Spock's eyebrow acknowledged his acted optimism.

'By me, and now, by you.'

'So?'

For whatever reason, it was important that he listen to Spock's reasoning, though his own tiredness made him swallow yawn after yawn.

Spock noticed, of course. 'Perhaps you would care to retire for the night?'

Kirk flopped on his bed, but remained sitting. 'Do go on.'

'I chose red for Astronomy in deference to my human ancestors. They were sea-farers,' Kirk's face softened at the word he'd never expected to hear in his cabin, 'in ancient times, those who travelled by sea used stars for navigation, and charted land; a seamless union. However, on Earth, knowledge had always been paid for: in money, in time, in blood, and blood was the cheapest currency.'

Kirk nodded, wrung out and dejected. That Vulcans had established contact with the Terran civilisation at all surprised him sometimes. Spock was concentrating at a point beyond the bulkhead, so he allowed himself to recline on the bed.

'What had transpired here is not, in fact, dissimilar. We have observed what you humans call the cutting edge of science.' Spock's hands flexed.

'Are you angry?'

'Anger - '

'But are you?'

'I am... ' _Inconsolable_, Kirk supplied. 'Dissatisfied with the situation. That the old man was the only victim of his own curiosity is too improbable to contemplate. How many died for no better reason than a malfunctioning program?'

_Add to that estimate the entire crew of the_ Excalibur.

'For the world is hollow... They were forbidden to talk about it, not to think or know.'

'In what way is it better?'

'It isn't. Although considering the other improbabilities we recently encountered, I still retain some hope for this people's development.'

Kirk made a show of removing his boots, ignoring the intrigued Vulcan. 'Ahh, good.'

'To what are you referring?'

'Why, that they would have a _cure _for a rare enough disease, one that our Chief Medical Officer has developed so_ suddenly_, and the cure is _compatible _with humans, and that we meet them _in time_ - '

'Remarkable,' Spock agreed, his cheeks colouring slightly.

'Indeed.'

'Yes.'

'And considering the hours you've been spending in the labs lately - '

'Captain - '

'And your sudden interest in human biochemistry - '

Spock coughed, now definitely greenish. 'To your information, I minored in human biochemistry.'

'Than you're just the man for the job.'

Success! Spock was flustered. 'I would ask you not to share your speculations with the doctor.'

'Oh? Why not?' Kirk had to hide behind a pillow from the daggers glared in his direction.

At long last, Spock answered, all the more obvious for his evenness.

'If he has a reason to consider his vacation not a total waste of time, but a step leading to a valuable discovery, his conscience would not be so burdened.'

_Sigh_.

'Okay, Mr. Spock, I promise.' He felt half-dead even lying down.

'Then I shall leave you to your rest.'

Kirk made an effort to appear a hospitable host and removed the pillow from his face to nod at his leaving guest.

'Marlinespikes,' he mumbled, slurping drool.

'Jim?'

'We're _Fleet_,' he explained, not bothering to open his eyes. 'We glare _marlinespikes_.'

'...Good night, Captain,' Spock answered in a carefully bemused voice.

They both allowed their lips to quirk when he exited the room.


	2. McCoy

Disclaimer: no, nothing, nobody belongs to me.

A/N: contains spoilers to various TOS episodes and a reference to ST:XI, but still is closer to TOS than to the movie.

Once upon a times there lives a man with no feet for keeping distance, no heart for drawing blood, and no backbone for bowing to the inevitable. Not a cripple, though, by his own admission, one planet short of a Universe.

And he's gonna get his hands full, looking after people, and his eyes sharp, taking care of them, and his hair grey, just hearing what they're gonna do, and his face blue, talking them out of it. (For the sake of tradition. Ensign Chekhov'd said something about hope being the last thing to die, but really, the kid has no idea.)

_So he writes a manual, in his head because even when one has all the space in the world one hasn't got enough time. _'So You Ended Up in StarFleet',_ a best seller if there were one. Up there. In his skull._

1. Self-preservation is all about preserving selves of all aboard, including the split, the possessed (but not the possessing), and the half-Vulcan. Observe them during 'the quiet time', so you have something to laugh about during crises or vice versa.

2. You see a drop of anything, you leave the actual ocean-inferring to Science Officers. No need to stroke out imagining a multi-cellular organism or even a colony of cells similar to the little amoeba your Constitution-class vessel only just managed to blow up.

3. Of course the five-year-long mission had been planned. Now just let me find that memo and we can all learn what we're supposed to be doing right now. Statistically, we're probably missing out on the ultimate vacation already.

4. Anyone who roots for humanizing computers oughta lend a helping hand to Mr. H. Mudd. He will appreciate your naiveté, and we will appreciate your never being able to escape.

5. Regardless of what facilities you have in your Sickbay, be prepared to conduct the most difficult operations (like brain-reattaching difficult) in the field. Then come back to your state-of-the-art equipment and draw nice, long, activity-limiting recovery plans. Then burn them.

6. If the First Officer cannot bring himself to tell you of a medical emergency... think again, what are you doing on a Starship? Saving lives?

7. If the Captain proclaims risk 'our business', disagree and keep disagreeing until he sees reason.

8. There is a scale to estimate the development of a culture. From the Federation's point of view, there are two major types: those that achieved warp capability, and those that didn't. Those that did further branch into a) cultures on the brink of collapse, and b) cultures that have yet a chance of survival. If you encounter the a) kind, do not expect your Hippocratic Oath to be taken into consideration by policy makers. This is the Big Game... and risk is our business...

9. Familiarize yourself with Security personnel. Familiarize Security personnel with safety protocols. Live long and prosper.

10. If your tricorder tells you that an entity is a human who'd lived centuries ago, you may treat it as one. If your eyes tell you that a woman is someone you had once courted, check it with your tricorder. If your tricorder doesn't register a lifeform you clearly see, go consult a Vulcan.

11. If anything else fails, mutiny.


	3. Outsider, part I

A/N: this will be an arc featuring my OC Brian K. Hennigen, Secretary of State (as I have no idea of the structure of executive authority of the Star Trek Earth, I did not specify the state in question.) He was due a tour of the _Enterprise_ when she would return from her travels, but where had the Captain gone?

Also, though _relatable_ is considered to acquire its 'pop-psych' connotation fairly recently, in the second half of the XXth century, and is scorned by some purists as 'entertainment-industry jargon' (Jan Freeman, _The rise of a Hollywood-ism; plus, going R-free_, available at boston dot com), I still think Hennigen would totally use it, so there.

Being late is being rude.

And so Mr. Brian K. Hennigen, the newly minted Secretary of State and as fervent an epicure as a man could hope to remain at fifty-eight, was anxious to get to his destination as swiftly as possible. His race walking public image was finally paying off, and nobody was paying any attention. Starfleet Headquarters was abuzz with the same news that spurred his legs into undignified jogging.

The _Enterprise_ was coming home.

After years of much-publicized adventures, discoveries, First Contacts with other civilizations, the renowned ship was docking in San Francisco, or above San Francisco if one wished to be exact, to be re-fitted for yet another voyage among stars.

In fact, it docked the day before, to move all those technical matters out of the way. And what pleased Hennigen most, the way was being cleared out for _him_.

Him, and Sarek of Vulcan, the most famed ambassador currently on planet. They were to be given a tour, together. A perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the dignitary, since the _Enterprise_ was the only non-Vulcan vessel where a Vulcan was serving as a senior officer.

And even though what they would be shown would amount to a tiny glimpse of the overall splendor, he was already salivating at the chance to sit in The Chair and to shake The Hand of the Captain.

Hennigen looked behind him; bodyguards were gaining on him with grim determination. Gasping, he barged into the Transporter Room, waving at the red-shirt at the controls.

'The Vulcan – Sarek – been already?'

The red-shirt, a Lieutenant if he wasn't mistaken, shrugged his shoulders lethargically.

'I say, man, has he already beamed up?'

'And you would be?'

Honestly, 'fleeters boggled him with their disinterest in politics, if only because it was utterly fake. The Lieutenant, Irish by attitude more than by anything else, blinked placidly, while his right hand drummed a rhythm on the console – wasn't St. Vitus dance contraindicated in a job like that? Was he – was he humming? Hennigen pulled himself upright, tugging at his jacket unconsciously.

'I am the Secretary of State.'

The red-shirt nodded.

'Mr. Sarek was beamed up approximately three minutes ago.'

'Darn,' muttered the Secretary. The meet-and-greet was looking less likely by the second.

'Please step up, sir, the _Enterprise_ is standing by to receive you.'

He almost asked the man's name, a knee-jerk reaction, but the heavy steps of his loyal protectors were falling nearer and nearer. Hennigen jumped on the pad, jacket still askew, and made a chopping motion with his hand.

'Energize!'

Through the haze he could see the red-shirt drum and smile fatherly at his enraged escort. Truth to tell, they did resemble a flock of flying monkeys, bursting in like that.

Materializing on another pad, he allowed himself a breath or two, just to memorize the glorious moment for years to come.

The air was – different. He could not tell exactly what was in it, but it was as though he entered the Monstrous Museum of Mechanics. The only time his children had whisked him away from an election speech. His nose scrunched itself in memory.

'Mr. Secretary?' inquired a dry voice.

He whirled around, 'red about the gills', as his wife called that patchy blush, and sure, there was a Vulcan at the foot of the platform.

This was not Sarek, unless the Ambassador had grown a century younger since morning. Also, Sarek would not be wearing a blue 'fleet-issue shirt of a Science Officer. Therefore, it could only be…

'Mr. Spock?'

The latter greeted him in a sedate manner.

Hennigen stared.

Here was a living legend, the most inquisitive one of the species that drove Federation's science forward – Terrans were good in other areas, but in this Vulcans stood unmatched; the one that stole Kirk's _flagship_ from under Kirk's very _nose_ and still became fast friends with the man; the one, the one…

The one and only Mr. Spock.

He swallowed, berating himself for being so unprofessionally transparent, and surveyed the room.

The customary red-shirt manning the transporter was polishing the panel with the single-mindedness of an ant. Engineers did so far come across as somewhat strange folk. The walls were – well, the walls were walls, and the floor was floor, and that was that.

'I was expecting to see the Captain?' Lord, he hoped he wasn't adding insult to injury.

Mr. Spock drew himself to his full height.

'The Captain is currently providing a tour to Ambassador Sarek S'chn T'gai. May I be your guide?'

Hennigen proved he could roll with the punches occasionally.

'Much obliged,' he ceremoniously replied. It still struck him as illogical that a Vulcan was left waiting on a human, and vice versa, but Kirk was a well-known out-of-the-box problem-solver. Perhaps he knew of the Secretary's inexperience with the race, and decided, as usual, to help everybody out.

Meanwhile, he was trailing after his impassive host, trying to contain his excitement. He rarely could or even had to; it was what made him personable, what made him relatable, what made him _elected_. Now, chafing in mortification, his brain latched onto the first thing he remembered.

He opened his mouth, grinned in relief, and promptly clamped it shut.

He'd remembered a stupid anecdote, popular with the Admiralty, who were forever stymied by James Kirk's reports.

_Lt.-Cmdr. Giotto, Head of Security on the _Enterprise_, is debriefing his men. _

'_Any damage to the ship?'_

'_None, sir.'_

'_Any loss to the crew?'_

'_None, sir.'_

'_Any task unfulfilled? Any mindmeld with a native? Come on, any breach of the Prime Directive?'_

'_None, sir.'_

'_Damn,' sighs Giotto, setting his blaster on stun. 'Computer, locate Captain Kirk.'_

Mr. Spock was politely waiting for him to keep up. His eyes betrayed a hint of curiosity as to why their guest of honour kept chewing his tongue and clearing his throat. Such behaviour went against the etiquette of any diplomatic mission he'd participated in.

'What's on agenda?'

'Perhaps you would be interested in scientific laboratories?'

'Oh _yeees_, thank you very much. And the Bridge.' Labs! They were going to show him heaps of recondite devices and miles of scribbled-on tapes, maybe even invite him to play with the cheapest of their machines. Hennigen promised himself he'd praise the outdated equipment if it killed him, and followed the Charon into the turbolift.

TBC


	4. Outsider, part II

Hennigen quickly got a new appreciation for Mr. Spock's leadership abilities: the task of nursing an ignoramus through fourteen different labs did not prevent the Vulcan from simultaneously directing his staff in the last stages of research and packing. A rush of unexpected nostalgia – he had dreamt about becoming a planetologist once, when he was very young and idealistic – prompted the Secretary to view the two of them as a meandering dipole. At one domain, hushed, intense fusion of opinions and brainpowers, and shop talk that spiraled out into math more often than not, and when it did, he could blurrily distinguish parentheses brimming with unvoiced assumptions, as common to these people as his signature was to him. At the other, bland frowns, hasty retreats, long pauses he had to fill with meaningless small talk.

His resolution concerning the equipment expired somewhere between the Sub-Department of Botany, where a cute assistant, stumbling over her rehearsed monologue, attempted to impress on him why it should rightly be called "The Sub-Department of Autotrophic Lifeforms" (some of her examples made his hair stand on end, but the poor girl never noticed), and that of Astrophysics, the head of which had barely spoken a word in his direction before whisking Mr. Spock towards some hideous apparatus. Once there, they began to argue about deconstruction, depressurizing, and whether a Mr. Chekhov should be banned for life from using the long-range sensors (he could swear the distraught physicist insisted on a life-long imprisonment). The Secretary forgot all about machinery.

He watched people.

They were so ordinary, these men and women. So attuned to each other. So surprised "the brass" deigned to look into their business – and what in Zefram Cochran's name were they supposed to do with him? He was lost in a swarm, which upon determining his harmlessness was rapidly swirling back into upbeat chaos.

Warnings were being shouted, cables were rolling and being chased, the Quartermaster was signing 'padds and scolding some hapless Ensign for the loss of fifty-four styluses –

'For God's sake, Grinby, do you eat them? Do you _sow_ them on away missions?'

'Well it's not like it's a communicator!' the Ensign was at the end of his tether, as was his adversary, to what the Secretary attributed his heated exclamation of 'Well it's not like you're a Doctor!'

His elbow was nudged, and he recoiled from the gentle touch. Mr. Spock was gazing at him, bemused by his covering in a corner.

'Lively,' he managed.

The Vulcan seemed mollified, and was already half a thought away when Hennigen desperately appealed to be led somewhere quieter. He acquiesced graciously enough, and soon they were leaving the teeming deck.

'Bridge,' said Mr. Spock, and the doors slid closed.

'Excuse me,' blurted Hennigen, who was preparing to swallow a disappointment but couldn't help asking. 'May I have a look at the Captain's quarters?'

Mr. Spock's nostrils flared just a fraction of an angle, but Kirk must have foreseen his wish; they went there instead, and found the cabin unlocked.

'Please wait.' Mr. Spock entered first, ascertained the absence of enemies – the absence of anybody, for that matter – and then invited the Secretary in. He himself did not stray from the door.

Spock's shoulderblades touched a little plaque, on which four words were engraved.

The Secretary could not read them, he didn't even think to look; it was a fairly recent addition, although one that had already been firmly installed in the ship's folklore. Even the cool XO had once mellowed enough to share his opinion on the matter, with an eager audience of one bedridden commanding officer.

He'd said, logical as ever, that the 'war cry', as Lt. Uhura termed it; the 'voodoo therapy', as Dr. McCoy mocked it; the "worst case of IDIC this side of 40 Eridani", as per Mr. Chekhov's compulsory _leetle joke_; the Message on the Wall, as it was commonly referred to, was, in fact, a piece of poetry.

How can it be poetry when it is the artless prose of my everyday existence? Asked Jim, pink with pleasure.

It is simple, he answered; it serves its purpose; it is perfectly balanced, every constituent is necessary and sufficient, and so is the whole; and finally, it _has_ to be questioned and it _has_ to be true.

It sure never gets old, Jim ruefully agreed.

However, Spock was aware that an outsider could view 'I am captain Kirk' as vain stupidity, and was therefore standing sentry before the infamous plaque, while the civilian poked through the quarters of the 'Fleet's least conventional leader.

What Spock failed to consider was, he would never be able to tuck the _Enterprise_ behind his back.

Hennigen, catching on the solemnity of the event, did not advance further into the room. Instead, he studied his surroundings as if sight was water, and he a wanderer dying of thirst. He knew better than to ruin the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

An occasional knick-knack relieved the Spartan Starfleet setting. The furniture was sturdy; out _there_, everything had to have an increased margin of safety. By the way, how does one go about buying a chair, between mapping stars and nipping wars in the bud? He had a wild concept, all-too-similar to his celebrated insights, that all spacers were aliens, a breed of superbeings bound by duty to their wingless kinsfolk. _Huh_. The cabin could hardly spring a bigger shock on him after that, but he gave it a perfunctory examination out of sheer habit.

There were no breakables; the mirror itself was metal; Hennigen doubted there would be much damage if the _Enterprise_ were turned upside down and rattled, well, maybe except two blurred stains on the ceiling.

He turned to his escort, with the intent to compliment, but it felt flat, tactless. So he said nothing. They went outside, and the Vulcan palmed the door closed. Hennigen was thoroughly ill at ease with his own taciturnity; it did not become a statesman of his caliber.

What he failed to consider was, the First Officer, having served under the Captain for years and being a member of a notoriously candid race, could and would easily back up or disprove his deductions about the man, seeing as they did not touch upon anything classified.

Hennigen smirked, earning himself a sidelong glance and a quirked eyebrow. _Classified, now there's a word. _Was there really a level of clearance to _describe_ what these people, from the lowliest ensign to the ubiquitous invisible Kirk, encountered in their travels, let alone _allow_ them to encounter it? What unimaginable trust must Federation invest in her subjects to set them loose at the Galaxy, and what unspeakable loyalty must they pay her back with?

They moved along in sync, never guessing that for a minute, they had been in complete agreement with each other.


	5. Outsider III: McCoy and Kirk

A/N: the idea of recycling was already used at least in one fic (I don't remember the author, sorry). It is, however, no laughing matter in so contained an environment, so…

Let us now leave the two on their way to the Bridge, and have a look at the ship's Sickbay, where events of no less magnitude were enfolding.

The Lord of Sickbay, one Doctor McCoy was growing steadily more and more impatient. Well, 'impatient' was the word which Spock would use. He himself had yet to describe his condition, known in certain circles as 'homeblastitis'.

For one thing, he had to prove to the Gods of Docking that 'Enterprise' was not delivering billions of new deadly germs to the delicate environment of the Earth. McCoy even had had all the files and forms in triplicate, just to spite Piper, who had promised him a beautiful reunion with Terran colleagues. Now, it seemed, he only had to repeat the effort, and the ship could just escape being quarantined for a fortnight.

(According to Jim, he'd stopped speaking Standard a week ago, and switched to Orlopian.)

He was signing, reviewing and authorising the 'sheets Chapel kept producing no doubt by magic; decaf and grammar joined forces to torment him, and his mind fumed over matters for which there were no official reports.

They had come back.

This wasn't just another beam-down to a Class M Planet. This was the real thing. They had come back for good.

...And the world had moved on - have been moving on before they had left orbit.

He had known it would be so; unlike other crewmen, he had to keep that in mind at each single moment of their voyage. Oh, they would sometimes be hit by the realization (except, of course, Spock, who was immune to whimsy and had no reason to view Earth as something special); and certainly those who signed on for a year or two had it easier (mustn't they?), so the crushing weight he bore was likely just that - a tiredness from being alert for so long. He couldn't help sharing it with Jim and maybe Scotty, too (though he had his doubts on that count; damn it, should have talked to the man...), but that was just the way it worked.

He had prepared himself as best he could for the change that was about to come. Had he prepared the others?

There was Burkhard G., whose wife had won a lottery and moved to another continent. Burkhard was all agog to get to her and live happily ever after, but he had been heard to mutter that she was free with money; and she now had a rescued cat which wasn't completely house-trained.

There was Jean B., whose son (begot through artificial insemination) recently started being treated for infantile cerebral paralysis. The man had literally ransacked McCoy's resources on the topic. The Captain had (illegally, strictly speaking) sent him home a whole two days ahead of others - a direct beam-down to his orchard. It was a sign of how united the crew was that the fact remained unknown to the authorities... but what could they do to really help the man?

There was David R., The Man Driven Insane by Tribbles.

The elderly Ensign might well had once been the topmost Replirator (Replicator Operator) in Alpha Quadrant, thought McCoy with sincere remorse. One had to be bright to fit into one of the biggest non-commercial ships of the Federation. He remained, without doubt, a genius of engineering; could synthetize almost anything, indeed, in young Chekhov's words, could 'shoe a flea.' But he was spoiled by the environment he shared with so many men of science, had no particular appreciation for ethics and could give Scrooge a run for his money when it came to 'waste' of life-supporting materials... He'd won the 'Fleet-wide award 'Mr. Ergono-Miser' twice in a row!

Robinson had tried to make it a Ship Regulation (a different set from those issued by the Board) that every person should exhale before being beamed down into breathable atmosphere and inhale before being beamed up. ('In this way, oxygen should be contained - and considering the mortality among the Security Department, who often are not even beamed _up_, or had to be frozen and preserved until depositing at the next Starbase, the loss of elements can be considerable...' The redshirts had ostracized R. for a month after that one.)

To mollify him, Scotty beamed up tons of ice and coal, but as Kirk said, anything was better than recycling his crew.

After the Splitting of the Captain, Kirk awaited a fearsome tantrum (Robinson chewed the ears off anyone who gained more than a stone if McCoy hadn't authorized it), but his XO did some persuading, and it was averted.

Sulu was now an expert on Plant Metabolism; he defended every introduced specimen, providing data on its input and output rates and products.

In the end, R. got food poisoning from undercooked oysters. Apparently the 'Enterprise' was short on iodine. He was now sleeping peacefully behind a curtain, and McCoy was perfectly happy with it.

There was Ellen D. He had treated her for skin irritation (it could have been her last allergy ever, and he was still dimly relieved that it wasn't) after a landside mission early in their voyage. Amiable, hardy, and straightforward, she was a picture of health. It was then a shock to see her despondent and not-quite-there some months later. No, this wasn't a medical complaint - those were reported at once, after he had had The Talk with Department Heads.

Her friends told him there had been 'trouble at home,' but did not go into details. He shuffled the examinations schedule and sat her down with a glass of some unreplicated stuff.

They talked for a minute or two. He chanced to look down on her hand: broad, calloused, with closely clipped nails. She was holding the glass with a teetotaler's cluelessness... and there was a faint trace of a ring on her ringless hand.

Spock's story, as well as his own divorce prompted him to speak, but -

'They say... his dog was drowning.'

And she blinked and went away.

People 'back home' were supposed to stay safe.

Ships went out deeper and deeper, charting Uncharted Space, and sometimes they did not return; but that was the reality of Starfleet. 'Where no man has gone before,' as the Captain liked to remind them. Some risk always remained for those who lived on colonized planets, too.

But not on Earth, never on Earth. They had no business dying on Earth.

...And so she had served the whole five years.

McCoy persuaded Spock not to give Ellen too glowing a reference. The hobgoblin breathed fire, and his lecture on gender equality would have the Doctor enraptured in different circumstances; however, he as the CMO had the final say in the matter. He wanted her to consider other options except a career as a Discoverer; to start anew - she was still young.

He tried to explain that without breaching confidentiality, but he wasn't sure the Vulcan understood.

Ensign D. received her datachip from Head Nurse Chapel, and, friends that they were, McCoy heard them chatting on with the formalities out of the way. He wasn't eavesdropping - this was his workplace, thank you very much, and they talked quietly - but his heart lifted nonetheless when he caught 'likelihood of twins' and 'Mom approves'.

In that very moment, the doors hissed open, and Jim Kirk walked in.

McCoy jumped up. So did the girls.

'At ease,' the Captain said, amused. It was obvious he didn't have an urgent business in Sickbay, medically speaking.

D. reddened. Chapel gave a sweet smile.

'We were discussing dresses, Captain.'

Something close to panic flashed in Kirk's eyes. McCoy sat down again and busied himself with innumerable signatures. He didn't have all day.

'It's such a headache,' His HN went on in an innocent voice. 'Ellen here complains that blue isn't her colour.'

'Mmm-hmm.'

'And I quite agree.'

'Mmm-hmm.'

'And oh, we'll have to discard almost all our clothes except for, you know, the few old favourites. As it is, they will be horribly out of fashion.'

Kirk grimaced. He had the highest respect for Uhura, but even she took to preening of late. Certainly bubonic plague would cause less frenzy than this new women's hobby.

'What would you advise?'

McCoy lifted up his eyes from the datapadd. There was a real request in Chapel's question. Of course, what the Captain knew about his Ensigns' sorrows was anybody's guess...

'Lavender,' Jim said, smiling that damned Kirk smile, bold and sincere and kind. 'And have it replicated.'

Chapel huffed, and D. smiled, too. As usual, it did wonders for her face. 'It is never quite the same as what can be found in a shop.'

Kirk shrugged. 'Well, if you have time for shopping. There's a ball tonight - 'Enterprise' is the guest of honour,' he sighed. McCoy told himself in his best CMO tones that this was his workplace, and he couldn't help listening in if they carried on so.

'All decorated officers are expected to attend. I would appreciate it if you agreed to accompany me...'

'I do,' the girl said timidly.

Why, you dog, McCoy thought. She's easily a head higher than you. You'll be the funniest thing hopping around in full parade uniform - and since when have you actually decided to come?

On the other hand, there shouldn't be a shortage of handsome giants.

By this time, the females had left together and the man had manouvred towards McCoy's desk, leaned over it and said in a low, charged voice:

'Bones. The brass is aboard. Hide me, I beg.'


End file.
